Taylor Armerding, Synopsys Software Integrity Group senior strategist, gives you the scoop on application security and insecurity in this week’s Security Mashup.
What’s in this week’s Security Mashup, you ask?
Fixing the CVE program, your personal data has already “checked out,” and it even “may potentially” have taken flight. Watch this week’s episode below to see why these stories are trending or read the transcript below.

Google started releasing monthly security updates for Android back in August 2015. Modern Android devices show you the latest monthly patch level that has been applied. The responsibility for deploying the patches ultimately falls on original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and carriers, who need to test the security updates on their devices to ensure that they do not break any functionality. Google does provide updates for its Nexus and Pixel devices directly to end users, but given how Android is designed, Google cannot simply push out arbitrary security updates to all Android devices.
Do OEMs have to push out updates?
The problem is that OEMs and carriers are responsible not only for pushing out the updates but also for displaying the latest month for which Google’s monthly updates have been applied to a device. There may be legitimate reasons why an OEM or carrier may choose not to push out a security update for a particular type of device. For example:

Modern mobile device users often have their devices tightly integrated into daily life. From banking apps to social media feeds, these applications are high visibility targets for hackers and thieves looking to exploit weaknesses or hijack vulnerabilities. By ramping up mobile app security, vendors ensure the safety and security of their users and their infrastructure.
Recent mobile attacks and vulnerabilities
The latest high-profile mobile threat is the Broadpwn attack. This threat targets the Broadcom chipset used in many popular mobile devices. Broadpwn takes advantage of low-level communications combined with flaws in the Android platform. Thus, allowing a malicious payload to travel from one phone to the next virtually undetected. Fuzz testing tools are an ideal method of detecting this type of flaw.